Colour
by Spinnerweb
Summary: During a difficult mission, Cosette's blood trauma comes back; the person who helps her overcome it is the one she least expected to.


**A/N: Best if you play up to the Yuell story mission and Randy's classmate mission before reading this.**

It was raining so hard that every drop was like a slap on the back, only not as friendly. Lightning would threaten to tear the sky in half every now and then. Splashing through the mud and ducking low to avoid the enemy's fire, Cosette single-mindedly made her way to the frail figure lying absolutely still some way off. While the others were having it bad too, she was suffering the most. She had to keep her eyes shut every time she was healing someone or she'd see the blood, and those haunting memories would come back.

She'd dropped her pistol somewhere and had been looking around for it when she saw the injured civilian there. He or she was probably dead already. The storm made it so hard to see. The only time she could see clearly was when lightning flashed, and she didn't like what she saw.

Reaching the civilian without getting shot, she pulled him - it was a man - over, and tried to figure out where the wound was without having to see red again. The man was making feeble noises. At least he was alive. Well, one quick look probably wouldn't kill her. The guy would obviously die soon if she didn't heal him.

Then lightning flashed again, illuminating the blood on the man's body and her mind almost seemed to distort. She was back in Yuell, sitting next to her dead father, seeing nothing but red.

From what seemed a great distance away she heard Avan shouting at her to hurry up and get the job done, but her hands were shaking so badly she dropped the ragnaid. As she fumbled trying to pick it up again, someone else came up and used his own ragnaid on the civilian.

Everything was in black and white for her now, again. She couldn't see any colour, but she recognized Randy's voice, speaking gentle yet indistinct words as he pulled her up.

"I radioed the medic. He's coming. We'll just have to wait until then and then we can get out of here," he said.

She nodded without thinking, her vision blurring as well.

"Cosette... are you all right?"

"Hm...? Y-yeah, I'm fine..."

Oddly she remembered how earlier in the year Zeri had told her and Avan that Randy was, in fact, a hypocrite ( Avan never let Randy forget the laxatives incident that followed) but he didn't seem it now. He seemed every bit as kind and saccharine as she thought he was back before then.

Still shaking, both from the icy cold and from her blood trauma, she allowed him to help her up and staggered with him by her side to base camp.

Back at Lanseal the next day, Randy came to sit next to her as she sat near the fountain in the courtyard, resting her head on her knuckles. She had bunked classes for the day. She knew she would get in trouble over it later but she was unable to focus. The colour in her sight still hadn't come back to her.

"That man last night is recovering now," he said as he sat next to her. "You saved him."

"Don't try to make me feel better," she said. "I was useless. You did everything yourself."

There was a pause. They couldn't think of what to say.

"Thanks for helping me back there. I was a mess," Cosette said.

"All right, enough with the self-depreciation. He wasn't the only guy you saved."

"So why are you out of class?"

"We had a test today, remember? I've done it so I got out of there early."

"Oh, damn," Cosette said, slapping her forehead. If a student missed a test without a reason they were given the lowest grade, a C.

"Don't worry about it. How can they expect us to study _and_ fight rebels at the same time? I'll tell Professor Brixham you weren't feeling well or something."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"So... what happened to you last night? Did you go colour blind again?" Everyone knew that she would go colour blind every time she saw red. How humiliating.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"All right," he said, getting up. "If you need some time alone..."

"Wait," she said, stopping him.

He raised his eyebrows, questioning about her action.

"There's something about your presence that - that makes me feel better," she said. "You're not at all what Ze - " she stopped herself, feeling stupid, but she'd said too much.

"Ze... Zeri, oh, why can't he let that go," Randy said exasperatedly. "Well, after you know what happened and I saw how everyone still liked me, I didn't really feel like putting on an act anymore."

"You're nice," Cosette said, and felt her face burn as she said it.

Without thinking they leaned into each other until their lips touched, and as they did Cosette's world exploded with colour again, more beautiful than she ever remembered.

"I love you," Cosette said, red-faced when they were done kissing.

He opened his mouth but before he could say anything the bell rang and the other students came out of the classrooms. She nodded to show him she understood and they separated before anyone saw them, but they were sure that from then on they'd be seeing more of each other.

**A/N: Something I always wanted to write ever since I was on my first playthrough, which was, let me see, two and a half years ago. I love VC2 that much, see, and these two were my favourite engineers. Sorry if it isn't that good a story, but I've been having something similar to writer's block again.**


End file.
